


Touch

by Anaross



Series: Ransomed, etc. [2]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaross/pseuds/Anaross
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm the only surviving One of the Chosen Two, and I'm giving the commencement address at the Slayer Academy. I had a speech all prepared, but when I see Spike staring at the ground in the back … well, I put it aside. I just talk to the graduates about living. About loving. About taking risks not just with a stake but with your heart.</p><p>Buffy POV. A couple of years after the events in "Ransomed".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Short PWP, with not much of either P, actually. I don't know. What the heck. It's sort of Spaith, and sort of Spuffy, but not like that! All allusion.
> 
> Faith — who was Spike's lover — has died before the story opens. 

The June of the third year of the Slayer Academy, I was the graduation speaker. No kidding. The slayerettes held a vote and voted for me, the longest lived Slayer. The for-real Chosen One. The only surviving One of the Chosen Two. So I spent a week writing a speech and another week practicing it, and then when the time came, when I stood there at the podium and looked out at all those fresh girl faces, and Spike at the back of the auditorium, gazing down at the ground like he suspected all too well—knew all too closely—what was going to happen to most of them. Well. I punted. I put aside my prepared speech and just talked to them, about living. You know. About loving. About taking risks not just with a stake but with your heart. 

They all cheered when I was done, and Spike was looking up now, right at me. Then he slipped out the back door, and I didn't see him again until Giles had distributed all the diplomas and the slayerettes had led the way to the food laid out on long tables in the gym.

Spike was there, ladling himself a cup of punch. I saw him tipping in a bit from a silver flask, and went to join him. He didn't walk away. He just toasted me with the punchcup and said, "Good speech."

"Not exactly what I planned to say."

"Well, you did manage not to tell them to live every day as if it were their last."

I groaned. "I was going to end with that. But I forgot."

"I'm glad."

He drank too much. He always had, sure. Now I could just imagine him going home every night after training the slayerettes, and Faith wasn't there, but the bottle was… it was all the same, his life, his unlife, except she was gone. And now it was summer, and the evenings went on forever, and he wouldn't have to get up every day to go to school. It wasn't, well, healthy. Not that I was any one to talk. My idea of a mourning ritual was 50 more pushups, and maybe another mile on my run. 

I found myself asking, "So what do you plan to do for the summer?"

He shrugged. "Dunno."

Stupid question. Spike never had any plans. He careened from one impulse to another, before now, at least. But he didn't even seem to have impulses anymore.

I'd give him a new one.

"Come back with me. To Cleveland."

He pulled out the flask, poured the rest of it into the last dregs of the punch in the bottom of his cup. Then he glanced at me. Half-smiled. "Cold up there."

"Wuss."

"Yeah. And proud."

"It's summer. Not so cold. And think of it. Slaying again. You'd love it."

He did that wiggle thing with his shoulders — not as insolent as a shrug, not as embarrassed as a squirm. "Giles says I can stay here the summer. He's planning to do some in-services for the active slayers."

"Oh, good," I said airily. "That'll be fun for you. I hear Kennedy's going to lead a seminar."

He was silent for just a second. Then — "Got your back, Slayer."

 

 

There was no way we were going to smuggle our favorite weapons through airport security, and I didn't fancy trusting them to a shipping company. So I proposed a road trip. 

"But — "

 _But Faith and I..._ I could read it in his eyes, in the sudden panic on his face.

"We'll go a different route," I said gently. "North. To... to Yosemite. We can camp out. "

It felt good being gentle with him. 

 

 

Separate tents. I debated long and hard about that, and finally decided to take it slow. Spike didn't notice, or didn't say anything, that first night when I pulled out the canvas bag with his tent and tossed it to him, then pulled out my own. It had been six months. Was that long enough? Probably not. A year. That would be long enough. Had to be long enough.

Six more months. 

So that night I lay in my tent and thought of him just a few feet away. He would be sad, having bad dreams, or maybe lying awake thinking about the past. 

I took off my sweatpants and pushed them with my feet to the bottom of the sleeping bag. Then I pulled off my top and tossed it into the corner of the tent. Then, barefoot, I pushed through the tent flap and stood there on the cold ground, looking up at El Capitan, bare and silver above me. The night sky beyond was full of stars, and the other tent was full of Spike, and there was no contest, really. 

He didn't stir when I entered, but I felt him wake. It was so dark in there, and that gave me courage. I unzipped the side of his sleeping bag and slid in beside him. "I'm cold," I whispered.

"Maybe if you put some clothes on, you'd be warmer." His arm went under my shoulders, pulled me against his side. I don't think he was planning it. It felt automatic, instinctive, familiar. Only he wasn't naked… he always used to sleep naked... and he wasn't cool to my touch anymore. I pressed closer, sliding my hand under his t-shirt. "Quicker to share your warmth."

He stilled my hand with his own. "Buffy — "

I subsided against him. "I know."

"I'm not... not good at transitions. You know. Takes a long time for me to give into change."

I made my voice authoritative. "Then just do what I tell you." 

I felt his smile against my cheek. "I always knew there was a dominatrix in you."

"Yes. So start obeying."

"I am yours to command." He sounded ironic, but I didn't care. Want. Take. Have. That was Faith's philosophy. The vampire philosophy too. He should recognize it. 

And I wanted. And I was going to take. And he was going to have.

I took his hand and put it on my breast. It lay there obediently, and obediently my nipple rose to touch it. "I'm going to count to sixty. Each number is a stroke. Got that?"

"I think so." His smile was still there in his voice, and I took heart.

"One." 

There was the slightest movement of his palm against my skin.

"Two." 

His palm slid down, and cupped me underneath, and one finger slid across the side of my breast.

"Three."

The finger slid closer to the peak.

"Four." This came out in the softest of breaths.

Another brush. I closed my eyes and just felt. It was his index finger. Callous from playing the guitar, from wielding an axe.

"Five."

A tiny change, the stroke curving a bit. An arc, not a circle.

"Six."

The corresponding arc on the other side of my aureole. My nipple strained upward, longing for a touch. 

"Seven."

He was utterly still, except for the finger making a slow circle all the way around. I was utterly still, except for my mouth, murmuring, "Eight."

The barest brush over the very tip of my nipple. I moaned. Got my breath back. Whispered, "Nine."

A calloused transit around the tip.

"Ten."

Across the tip.

"Eleven."

A thumb. The index finger. My nipple. My god.

 

"You didn't make it to sixty," Spike observed a moment later. "I think you owe me."

"We can pick up again. With our mouths." Impatiently I kicked the cover off us. It was absolutely dark in the tent, but my hands could see him, his beautiful face, the hollow of his cheek, the edge of his jaw.

"Hard to count while we're kissing, love."

"We'll count in our heads."

He gathered me close, both arms around me, one foot hooking my ankle. He was hard against me. I expected that. But Spike was patient this way, as in no other. He could wait forever if I asked him.

"Twelve," he whispered, and kissed me.

Thirteen, I thought as his tongue touched. 

Fourteen. Just the tip teased at my upper lip.

Fifteen. The lower lip.

Sixteen. My tongue flicked out. I caught him by surprise. He stilled, his hand in my hair, his mouth a fraction of an inch from mine.

Seventeen. I reached up a hand, slid it behind his neck, tugged him back.

Eighteen. My turn. My tongue. His mouth.

Nineteen. I had him moaning. I wanted him growling.

Twenty. Mission accomplished.

Twenty-one. "Buffy," he whispered against my lips. "Buffy."

Twenty-two. I nipped at his lower lip. I felt his growl way down in that neglected erogenous zone of mine.

Twenty-three. Licked where I'd nipped. 

Twenty-four. He met my tongue with his own. _C'mon, Slayer, you know you want to dance._

Twenty-five. I pulled away to catch my breath.

"Twenty-six," he said, and pulled me back.

Twenty-seven. I wasn't going to last till sixty this time either.

Twenty-eight. "Spike," I moaned. "Be naked."

Twenty-nine. I had no magical powers. He was still clothed. 

Thirty. His mouth had left mine. It was at my throat. His tongue slid through the hollow to the cleft of my breasts.

Thirty-one. The neglected nipple. No longer neglected.

Thirty-two. Neglected nipple now wet.

Thirty-three. Wet elsewhere too.

Thirty-four. "Down there, Spike."

Thirty-five. "Down where, pet?"

Thirty-six. I shoved his head. "There."

Thirty-seven. "Oh. There. Yeah. I remember there."

Thirty-eight. Ah.

Thirty-nine. "You are way too easy, love."

Forty. Ah.

Forty-one. "Or I'm way too good."

Forty-two. Way too good.

Forty-three. I remembered I had Slayer powers. I ripped the t-shirt off.

Forty-four. He tried to skin off his jeans. "Don't rip 'em. Last clean pair."

Forty-five. I bet they weren't all that clean anymore anyway.

Forty-six. Ah.

Forty-seven. I remembered this.

Forty-eight. All made sense again.

Forty-nine. His mouth on mine. He tasted like me. 

Fifty. Mine again. Mine.

....

So he almost made it to sixty. I didn't.

 

I remember... oh, in the early days. I used to leave him afterwards. As soon as I could stand, I'd gather my clothes and struggle into them and leave him without saying a word. He wouldn't speak either. He'd just watch me go.

He left me this night. Not the way I used to leave. Just a quiet sigh, a half-turn away. 

He wasn't thinking of me. 

I was grownup now. I didn't let it hurt. This was for him, not me. Well, maybe a bit for me. But ... but I knew him. He didn't give up easily. It took years before he gave up on me. And he couldn't give up the grief so easily either. 

But I was right. Only I could have done this, moved him that much on. We were together so long, intense so long, that his body remembered mine. The memory transcended time, blurred everything that had come between then and now. Let him forget, for just a little while.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on LiveJournal in April 2008.


End file.
